{"id":63694,"date":"2025-08-12T10:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T10:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/63694\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T10:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T10:04:09","slug":"judges-deny-nfl-arbitration-in-email-case-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/63694\/","title":{"rendered":"Judges Deny NFL Arbitration in Email Case Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA majority of the justices on the Supreme Court of Nevada ruled on Monday that the NFL cannot compel former Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> head coach Jon Gruden to arbitrate his claims accusing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell<\/a> or someone on the commissioner\u2019s behalf of tortiously interfering with his Raiders contract.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe decision affirms a 2022 ruling by Clark County (Nev.) District Court Judge Nancy Allf to deny the NFL\u2019s motion to dismiss the case to an arbitration overseen by Goodell.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe decision also increases the odds the NFL will seek a financial settlement with Goodell before pretrial discovery could lead to invasive requests to the league and its officials for emails, texts and testimony.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, pretrial discovery could be problematic for Gruden, too. He would need to share emails, texts and other materials related to his current and previous viewpoints, as well as prior statements, concerning race, sexual orientation and other potentially controversial topics. A settlement might make sense for both sides.<\/p>\n

\n\tGruden v. Goodell & NFL\u00a0has roots in the ex-coach\u2019s departure from the league four years ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2021, Gruden resigned from the Raiders in disgrace following stories from\u00a0The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0and Wall Street Journal\u00a0about emails he wrote when he was an ESPN employee in 2011. Gruden\u2019s emails were sent to then-Washington Commanders<\/a> president Bruce Allen and contained racist, misogynistic, transphobic and homophobic statements. By resigning, Gruden forfeited about $60 million on his Raiders contract. He also lost endorsement deals and saw his reputation as a Super Bowl winning coach damaged, perhaps irreversibly.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven though Gruden wrote the offensive emails, he contends the NFL\u2014and Goodell\u2014broke the law. His lawsuit contains claims for tortious interference with his employment contract, negligence and civil conspiracy. The emails might have been obtained by the league in its investigation of then-Washington owner Dan Snyder, though that has not been proven.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NFL and Goodell flatly deny Gruden\u2019s allegations and\u2014most importantly in Monday\u2019s ruling\u2014maintain that a court shouldn\u2019t review the case. Through his Raiders employment contract, Gruden contractually accepted an arbitration process outlined in the league constitution.<\/p>\n

\n\tAllf wasn\u2019t persuaded to toss Gruden\u2019s case to arbitration despite his contractual affirmation. She was receptive to Gruden\u2019s point that he wasn\u2019t provided a copy of the league\u2019s constitution, and thus (arguably) he never consented to its terms. Allf also found Gruden\u2019s contention that since he was no longer a coach of an NFL team, he can\u2019t be bound by an arbitration provision that contemplates NFL authority, to be a salient factor in the legal analysis. In addition, she thought the arbitration provision was unenforceable on account of it being, in her view, unconscionable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLast year, Justices Elissa Cadish and Kristina Pickering rejected that line of thinking and agreed with the NFL that Gruden\u2019s case must be dismissed to arbitration. They emphasized that Gruden contractually assented to a statement saying he acknowledged having \u201cread the NFL Constitution and By-Laws and applicable NFL rules and regulations, and understands their meaning.\u201d Cadish and Pickering also reasoned that \u201carbitration clauses are presumed to survive contract termination\u201d when the dispute is about facts and occurrences that took place during employment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tGruden then successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of Nevada to accept an en banc reconsideration, meaning a review by seven justices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMonday\u2019s majority opinion was authored by five justices: Chief Justice Douglas Herndon and Justices Ron D. Parraguirre, Linda Marie Bell, Lidia S. Stiglich and Patricia Lee.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe majority reasoned that Gruden, as a former employee, \u201cis not bound by the arbitration clause in the NFL constitution.\u201d The majority worried that if the constitution were to bind former employees, Goodell \u201ccould essentially pick and choose which disputes to arbitrate.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe five justices also concurred with Allf that the arbitration clause in the league constitution was unconscionable. They reasoned the clause is a contract of adhesion, meaning one in a take-it-or-leave-it form.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the majority acknowledged that Gruden \u201ccould have\u201d negotiated his employment contract, they wrote \u201cthe same does not apply to the NFL constitution.\u201d To that point, the five justices underscored that Gruden couldn\u2019t negotiate a change to the league constitution, which is a legal document governing the relationship between the league and teams. He also couldn\u2019t demand it not be incorporated into his employment contract.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe majority\u2019s unconscionability analysis also took aim at Goodell\u2019s role in finding the arbitration clause \u201csubstantively unconscionable.\u201d The five justices stressed that the clause problematically authorizes \u201cGoodell, as Commissioner, to arbitrate disputes about his own conduct\u2014exactly what is at issue here.\u201d The majority asserted the \u201cability of the stronger party\u201d\u2014such as the NFL compared to Gruden\u2014\u201dto select a biased arbitrator is unconscionable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second way in which the arbitration clause is substantively unconscionable in the eyes of the majority is that the NFL can amend it \u201cat any time, and without notice.\u201d This is because the NFL (and owners) control the league constitution. In other words, Gruden could agree to arbitration language that could later be altered without his input or consent and still bind him.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a dissent by Justices Pickering and Cadish\u2014who previously ruled for the NFL\u2014the duo reasoned the majority overlooks a basic fact: Jon Gruden, an educated adult, explicitly agreed to the employment contract and all its terms, and he also \u201cexpressly acknowledged that he had read the NFL Constitution, understood its terms, and agreed to its incorporation by reference into the contract.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two dissenting justices also pointed out case precedent indicating that judges should favor the compelling of arbitration. In addition, Pickering and Cadish stressed that while the majority decided the arbitration clause can\u2019t apply to former employees, the clause itself doesn\u2019t make such a distinction. The two justices suggest the five majority justices read language into the contract that wasn\u2019t actually in the contract.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPickering and Cadish also disputed the majority\u2019s finding of unconscionability. They underscored that even if Gruden thought Goodell\u2014who Pickering and Cadish thought probably wouldn\u2019t serve as arbitrator\u2014was biased, Gruden could petition a court for review of the award on grounds of arbitrator bias.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NFL declined a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo be clear, Gruden hasn\u2019t won the case. He still must prove his factual allegations and establish that his legal theory works. But Monday\u2019s ruling gives him more leverage, especially in settlement talks.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ruling also comes as Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores<\/a> continues a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) against the NFL and several teams for racial discrimination and retaliation. Much of his case has been dismissed to arbitration. A ruling by the Supreme Court of Nevada is not binding on the SDNY or the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which has jurisdiction over the SDNY and which famously ruled that Tom Brady\u2019s Deflategate case could be decided by an arbitration process overseen by Goodell. Nonetheless, expect Flores\u2019 attorneys to reference Gruden\u2019s appellate victory in future filings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A majority of the justices on the Supreme Court of Nevada ruled on Monday that the NFL cannot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[40973,49,48,1736,514,24178,82,1758],"class_list":{"0":"post-63694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-brian-flores","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-roger-goodell","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-washington-commanders"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}